Jesus- God Made Flesh

John 1:14

(14) “AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH, AND DWELT AMONG US, (AND WE BEHELD HIS GLORY, THE GLORY AS OF THE ONLY BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER,) FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH.”

The phrase, “And the Word was made flesh,” refers to the Incarnation.

That God, the “Eternal Word,” in all of His wondrous Glory as the Creator of all things, which is beyond the comprehension of man, would become “flesh,” portrays a type of love which cannot be imagined by mere mortals. As well, He will retain this “flesh” forever, albeit in Glorified Form.

This made Jesus, God’s Son, for Sonship in connection with Jesus Christ always refers to humanity, never to Deity. He was always the “Word,” but not always “flesh!” However, He did not cease to be the “Word,” even when He became “flesh.”

When Jesus “Became flesh,” His moral glory brought back to the human family the very Image of God. Man departed from God and lost His Image. So, the True Image of God came to dwell with man, in order that the Holy Spirit could dwell in man, that man might dwell in God.

Man has never observed man as God originally made him, other than when men observed Jesus Christ. Man, who has fallen from his lofty state, has no idea as to what he was before the Fall. There was, and is, no way he could know except in Jesus. Jesus was, even in His consummate flesh, the Perfect Man, “The Man Christ Jesus” (I Tim. 2:5). But sadly, man does not desire to accept God’s Standard of Perfection, and continues to try to produce his own, which always fails. The very idea of Redemption as portrayed in verse 12, is to make men “Sons of God,” in effect, in the Image of Christ, Who is the Image of God.

The phrase, “And dwelt among us,” refers to Jesus, although perfect, not holding Himself aloft from all others, as many or most of the self-appointed greats of the world do, but rather lived as all men, even a peasant. His Mother and foster Father, at least as far as the economic sense was concerned, were of the poor. Joseph was a carpenter, and it seems raised Jesus in this same occupation, for tradition says that Jesus mostly made plows and yokes. Consequently, as “flesh,” He knew exactly how most of the world lives, laboring to earn a bare existence. As a result, He is “Touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Heb. 4:15).

The phrase, “And we beheld His Glory,” speaks of His Deity, although hidden from eyes which were merely curious. Someone has said that in the Incarnation, Christ, while always retaining possession of His Deity, did lose its expression.

His “Glory” was represented not only in Who He was, but, as well, in what He did. His Miracle-working Power, which He used to heal literally thousands, was in a sense a transferring of a tiny part of His Glory from Himself to the needy soul. The same could be said for Miracles and Deliverances.

The Greek word for “beheld” is “theaomai,” and means “a careful and deliberate vision which interprets its object.” It is more than merely seeing, but has the idea in mind of an object, in this case, a Person displaying a certain aura or attribute which causes one to see something far above the ordinary. Such was Christ! Consequently, the Pharisees and Religious Leaders of Israel had no excuse for their actions, inasmuch as this “Glory” was obvious to all. There is none so blind as those who refuse to see, even though plainly obvious to them.

The phrase, “The Glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father,” presents Jesus Who is, and was, and always will be “The Only Begotten Son of God.”

Men never will be “begotten,” or “born” in the same sense as Jesus was (Mat. 1:18–25; Lk. 1:34–35), for their sonship is on a different basis—that of adoption, not an actual begetting and coming into existence (Rom. 8:15; 9:4; Gal. 4:5; Eph. 1:5).

The phrase, “Full of Grace and Truth,” proclaims with the word “Full” His Deity, for only God is “Full of Grace and Truth,” as “flesh” proclaimed His Humanity.

So, the Glory in which He was seen was that of an Only Son with the Father, the One Sole Object of the Father’s delight. Such are the two Glories displayed in these verses—His Glory as the Word Who was with God in Eternity, and His Glory on earth as the Only Son of the Father.

If one is to notice, there is no pedigree in this Gospel, for how could Deity have a pedigree? In Mark as well, there is also no pedigree, for a servant needs none; he only needs a character (Williams).

~J. Swaggart Ministry